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Breton Hill Capital Ltd. is one of the most prominent alternative asset management firms in the sector. The Canada-based firm managed by Ray Caroll was founded in 2011 and focuses on liquid market strategies. The firm launched its flagship macro fund in 2011. It aims to offer long term capital appreciation by identifying trends in equity, commodities and currency market.

As of the end of September, Breton Hill manages an equity portfolio worth $329.84 million, according to its latest 13F filing. The portfolio is fairly distributed with the largest shares represented by the Consumer and Financial sectors. In fact, the fund has increased its exposure to the majority of its holdings in the consumer sector and in this article we are going to take a closer look at the five companies that represented its largest holdings in the sector. More specifically, the companies in question are: General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS), Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM), and Altria Group Inc. (NYSE:MO).

The smart money sentiment is an important metric that can be used to assess the long-term profitability of a stock. While there are thousands of stocks trading daily on the market, taking a look at what hedge funds think about certain companies can narrow down the search significantly. At Insider Monkey, we track more than 740 hedge funds, whose 13F filings we analyze as part of our small-cap strategy. Our research has shown that imitating a portfolio that includes the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds can outperform the market by as much as 95 basis points per month on average (see more details).

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General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) stock has declined by some 5.80% so far this year, which pushed its dividend yield to 4.74%. General Motor represents Breton Hill’s largest position amassing 3.3% of its equity portfolio. During the second quarter, the investment fund increased its holding in GM by 5% to 324,546 shares worth $10.31 million. Among the hedge funds in our database, 65 funds held $3.29 billion worth of General Motors shares in their portfolio at the end of June. General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) recently announced its new Chevy Bolt car, a fully-electric vehicle which will cost $37,000 and is expected to have a range of 238 miles. The company is looking to capitalize the burgeoning electric vehicles market with this new model and to compete with Tesla Motors, which is currently one of the leaders in the EV space. Even though the Chevy Bolt is currently more attractive then Tesla Model S in terms of pricing, its closer competitor will be the recently-announced Tesla Model 3.

Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) stock followed the general trend in the auto segment and has slid by over 14% year-to-date. However, Breton Hill boosted its position by by 18% during the third quarter and held a $9.54 million stake containing 790,749 shares at the end of September. Among the funds we track, 31 funds held stakes in Ford worth $685 million in aggregate at the end of the second quarter. In the last couple of weeks, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) issued a number of updates regarding some of its factories, including two plants in Mexico producing passenger cars that will be closed. In addition, the company also halted production at one of two plans that makes F-150 trucks for a week and shut down temporarily a plant in Michigan that produces Mustangs. The company cited sluggish demand as the main reason behind the decision to curtail the production .